My father is taking a sabbatical right now. A sabbatical is a period of time that a professor who works in a university gets off, often to go work overseas. Professors at my father's school take sabbaticals every seven years and are able to take up to a year off.

My father speaks Spanish almost fluently and really wanted me and my sister to learn Spanish. He thought that we should go to Spain for six months for the experience and the language.

So, here I am sitting in our flat in the center of Madrid, Spain, writing on our laptop for the Whyville Times. It may sound like I'm not enjoying the experience and sometimes that's exactly what I think, too. Actually, it's been pretty fun so far! I love almost all the food and I love art, so all the art museums are like heaven, but being here means that I'm not with my friends and I'm in a country where I can barely communicate. It's all in the experience, I guess.

I know that I have e-mail and that I can tell my friends what's happening whenever I want, but it just isn't the same as seeing them.

Enough with the negatives. Spain isn't that bad!

Like I said before, the food is awesome. There is this type of pastry called "churros" that are deep-fried and dipped in hot chocolate. They're one of my favorites and there is a little bar about a block away from our house called "El Diamante" that serves the best churros ever.

"El Diamante" literally means "The Diamond." Another food that's really good is "Tortilla Espa??ola." A Spanish tortilla is similar to an omelet. It is made from potatoes, eggs, and onions and is cooked like a pancake. It is usually about an inch thick and is about 8 inches in diameter.

The place to get tortillas and churros is called a Tapas Bar. Tapas Bars are usually open all day and you can get small snacks and drinks there. From about 9:30 to midnight, the bars are full of people having tapas.

That's another thing about Spain that I love -- people don't go to bed until midnight or 1:00 a.m.

Everyone eats a tiny breakfast at about 8:00 a.m. (or before they go to work), then have a really big meal at about 2:30 p.m., followed much later by tapas (little snacks also called pinchos) at 10:00 p.m. or so. The eating schedule is very different than in the USA.

For the two months that we've been here in Madrid, we've met many different people that we wouldn't have met back in the U.S. We met a woman from Amsterdam, Holland, who has been here for about a month teaching English. She knows four languages and is learning Spanish right now. She has been all over the world and her last job was teaching English in China!

Another person we met is a man from the southern part of England. He is here for a year for part of his college education. He is fluent in Spanish and is now tutoring me and my sister. It is very fun to listen to him talk -- he doesn't know it, but he's teaching us British terms at the same time that he's teaching us Spanish. His favorite words are "Brilliant" and "Nearly."

And then there's the couple from the northeast corner of Iowa who have been here for two years. They currently work for an international church. This summer they will be moving to the east side of Spain to go to graduate school. They have had many experiences here and they've given us lots of great advice about the subway system (called the Metro) and great restaurants.

Since I am used to living in a small college town, living in the big city is just as big of a shock as the culture is. The Metro system has taken a bit of getting used to. Back in the U.S., we would just hop in our big van and go everywhere we wanted.

The Metro has been one of the fun changes, though. I love orienteering, so my family often puts me in charge of the map and deciding when to switch on the train.

One of the changes that hasn't been so fun has been dealing with pickpockets and robbers. In any big city, there's going to be more crooks, and Madrid is no exception. We always are being told to hold on to our purses very tightly and wear our backpacks on our front. Unfortunately, we live very near the area where all the pickpockets live.

One place that has the worst reputation for pickpockets is The Rastro, the largest flea/street market in Europe! We live about three blocks away from the end of The Rastro, so every Sunday morning there are thousands of people coming up through our Metro stop.

We've been to The Rastro a few times now and we've had fun looking at what everyone is selling, but we've always been nervous of robbers. One day we saw a group of guys come up to a tourist at The Rastro and grab his wallet. Luckily the tourist noticed and grabbed it back.

One of the good things about The Rastro is that you can buy just about anything! We've seen people buying parts for their chandeliers, and one of the booths sells only rubber. Over the times we've gone there, we've bought everything from purses to scarves to light bulbs. One day, we found a whole street of stores devoted to pet supplies!

As you can probably figure, The Rastro is known all over Europe as the place that you can buy anything.

The last thing I'm going to tell you about today is the clothing! In Spain, most of the women wear long trench coats and high heels. All the shoes that the women wear have 3-inch long heels on them. How they run through the Metro system with those things on, I have yet to learn!

The men usually wear sweats or jeans and a T-shirt, or sometimes a little nicer button-up shirt. The men really don't dress any differently than they do in the U.S.

Although there is so much to do and see in this city, I really do miss my friends sometimes. That's why I love Whyville. I can keep in touch with my friends by chatting and Y-mailing any time.

Well, I could write all day about my experiences in Spain, but I won't. Thank you for taking your time to read my article.

-artista